


The Shape of a Soul

by imaginary_golux



Category: Tarzan - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, F/M, Meet-Cute, more movieverse than bookverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-17
Updated: 2018-02-17
Packaged: 2019-03-20 05:47:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13711140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_golux/pseuds/imaginary_golux
Summary: Only humans have daemons. This causes a few unexpected problems for Tarzan, who isn't...quite...an ape.Good girls have nice little pretty daemons. This causes a few entirely expected problems for Jane Porter, whose daemon is as bold, as clever, and as mischievous as her secret heart desires to be.Beta by my Best Beloved, Turn_of_the_Sonic_Screw.





	The Shape of a Soul

The great apes don’t have daemons, of course, which could go _very_ badly for little Tarzan, and very nearly _does_ a couple of times, but Kala is clever enough - and spent enough time watching Tarzan’s parents, wary and curious - to know that the strange not-animal which is constantly beside her little son is _part_ of him. It helps that it smells like him, and not like a bug or a small skittering rodent or a wild cat, no matter what form it takes. As Tarzan and the strange not-animal get older, it learns to skitter up trees, too high for the great apes to reach it, when any of the ones who might try to eat it are around; and when Tarzan is nearly full-grown, taller than Kala by far though not quite as broad in the shoulders as he will be someday, he’s finally large enough to defend it, and it rides on his shoulder or paces by his side or flies ahead of him as he swings through the trees.

It disconcerts Kala immensely, because it’s always _changing_. She’s used to snakes being snakes and birds being birds and bugs being bugs, and Tarzan’s odd not-animal can be any and all of those, or something she’s never even _seen_ before, but it always smells like Tarzan and it _talks_.

But as bad as it is when it’s always changing, Kala actually rather wishes it would go _back_ to being mutable when it finally _stops_ shifting form, because it becomes a genet and then it won’t shift again at _all_. Genets aren’t as bad as leopards - they’re smaller, for one thing - but they’re still large enough to pose a threat to young apes, and having one around the tribe _all the time_ is incredibly uncomfortable. It rides on Tarzan’s shoulder or scampers through the trees ahead of him, and it pokes its nose into everything, and it _talks_ , which is still the strangest thing Kala has ever heard - not the simple tongue which all the jungle shares, either, but the true speech of the apes, as fluently as Tarzan does.

Kala loves her strange son, but she sometimes wishes he was a _little_ more like an ape.

*

Jane’s daemon settled very young; she was only just thirteen when Rhyn decided that he was going to be a crow and that was the end of it. Jane thinks he’s beautiful, of course, but she has to admit he’s not as _flashy_ as some of the daemons other girls her age have. He’s smart as a whip, though, endlessly curious about everything, and gloriously unconcerned about anyone else’s opinion when he knows he’s right.

So...a fitting representation of Jane’s soul, really.

She and Rhyn get into all _sorts_ of trouble together when they’re little, and when they’re older, for all that Jane becomes the responsible one in the family, the one who makes sure her father remembers little things like eating and sleeping and not insulting important colleagues _too_ badly, Rhyn is a constant reminder of the fact that, at heart, she is still as mischievous, bold, and curious as she ever was.

On the really bad days, when she has worn herself out pretending to be just as proper and presentable and respectable as she can, when her father has managed to insult someone particularly important or had to be retrieved from who-knows-where or failed yet again to sell his latest article - when Jane wants nothing more than to collapse in a heap and cry herself out - it is Rhyn that reminds her that she is not only a dutiful daughter, a someday-wife. She is _herself_ , and her soul is brave and clever and mischievous, and that -

That is enough.

*

Tarzan has not named his soul-self, because it never occurred to him to do so. She is _part_ of him, after all, the part of him that’s inquisitive and agile and clever and cunning, fierce and loving and surprisingly dangerous for all their relatively small sizes. She’s just...the part that can be at the top of a tree when he’s at the bottom, or lurking on the other side of a watering hole while he’s in the underbrush, or keeping watch with keener ears and nose than Tarzan will ever have, so that nothing can ever creep up on them.

He has seen others like her in the jungle, now and again, sleek spotted creatures like tiny leopards, but _they_ do not talk, _they_ are not soul-selves. He assumes, if he ever thinks of it at all, that other humans - should there be any; certainly he has never seen anything that looks like _him_ in the jungle - will have other creatures as familiar as his soul-self is. Indeed, he continues to assume this up until the day the strange human people land upon the shore, and he goes, irresistibly curious despite Kala’s pleading, to see what they are like.

_They_ have creatures he’s never seen before. The man with white fur upon his face has a bird with brown-and-white feathers and _enormous_ eyes perched on his shoulder; the tall man with the stick that spits thunder and lightning has a stiff-legged creature like a wild dog. And the woman who truly catches Tarzan’s eye, the pale-skinned woman who watches the forest with wary caution and deep interest, has a great sleek black bird upon her shoulder, bright-eyed and sharp-beaked. Tarzan and his soul-self _both_ want to know what _that_ is.

*

Jane knows following the baboon child was a bad idea, but it was so _cute_ , and in any case she wanted to spend a little time away from Mister Clayton, who’s _awfully_ pushy, and she had Rhyn to keep a lookout -

And Rhyn is very little help when an entire _troop_ of angry baboons descends on them. Jane runs for her life, Rhyn flying low above her head and calling out the turns, and they’re both absolutely sure they’re going to _die_ when suddenly, like a thunderbolt, _something_ swoops down out of the trees and sweeps Jane up, and something _else_ grabs Rhyn - some enormous hunting cat, and Jane screams with terror but the cat’s hold is gentle, astonishingly gentle, and once Rhyn gets over the shock he closes his wings and goes limp, to make it easier for their rescuers to bear them away from the furious baboons.

Jane’s rescuer, when he finally stops and puts her down, turns out to be the handsomest man she’s ever seen, and also the nakedest. His daemon, the sleek cat-creature (Jane’s never seen anything like her, how _marvelous_ ) puts Rhyn down carefully and sits with her long tail curled around her paws, regarding Jane and Rhyn with the same bright curiosity as her person.

He doesn’t speak English - or French, or Latin - and he’s _far_ too tactile to be proper, but somehow Jane doesn’t actually feel _unsafe_ around him. It helps that though he examines Rhyn closely, he never ventures to _touch_ her daemon, and his cat-creature eventually curls up in loaf position next to Rhyn and starts purring. Rhyn responds by preening the cat-creature’s fur, which is probably the best indication Jane is going to get that the man is safe, and so Jane decides that all her life she’s wanted an adventure and here it is, dropped in her lap - or perhaps _she’s_ been dropped in _its_ lap, all things considered.

(Thankfully, _his_ lap - if nothing else about him - _is_ covered. Jane thinks she might have been a little less easily convinced of his harmlessness if he’d been _truly_ naked. As it is, that much skin is _dreadfully_ distracting.)

She puts a hand on her own chest, meets her rescuer’s brown eyes and smiles. “Jane,” she says clearly. “I’m Jane.”

Her rescuer considers her for a long moment, then reaches out to brush his fingers across the back of her hand. His cat-creature leans over and licks Rhyn’s beak solemnly. “Jane,” he says, and puts his hand flat on his own chest. “Tarzan.”

“Tarzan,” Jane says, and reaches out to touch his hand.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day 16 of the February Ficlet Challenge.
> 
> [Genets](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genet_\(animal\)) are small, catlike African carnivores.
> 
> I am imaginarygolux on tumblr.


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